She turned her dark eyes to his. "I live in a hotel," she said.
In the simple answer, Allison saw an unmeasured loneliness, coupled with a certain loyalty to her mother. He changed the subject.
"You like it here, don"t you?"
"Yes, indeed. Aunt Francesca is lovely and so is Cousin Rose. I wish,"
she went on, with a little sigh as she glanced about the comfortable room, "that I could always stay here." The child-like appeal in her tone set Allison"s heart to beating a little faster.
"I wish you could," he said. Remorsefully, he remembered the long hours he had spent with Rose at the piano, happily oblivious of Isabel.
"Are you fond of music?" he asked.
"Yes, indeed! I always sit outside and listen when you and Cousin Rose play."
"Come in whenever you want to," he responded, warmly.
"Won"t I be in the way? Won"t I be a bother?"
"I should say not. How could you be?"
"Then," Isabel smiled, "I"ll come sometimes, if I may. It"s the only pleasure I have."
"That"s too bad. Sometime we"ll go into town to the theatre, just you and I. Would you like to go?"
"I"d love to," she answered, eagerly.
The clock ticked industriously, the fire crackled merrily upon the hearth, and the wind howled outside. In the quiet room, Allison sat and studied Isabel, with the firelight shining upon her face and her white gown. She seemed much younger than her years.
"You"re only a child," he said, aloud; "a little, helpless child."
"How long do you think it will be before I"m grown up?"
"I don"t want you to grow up. I can remember now just how you looked the day I told you about the scent bottles. You had on a pink dress, with a sash to match, pink stockings, little white shoes with black b.u.t.tons, and the most fetching white sunbonnet. Your hair was falling in curls all round your face and it was such a warm day that the curls clung to your neck and annoyed you. You toddled over to me and said: "Allison, please fix my"s turls." Don"t you remember?"
She smiled and said she had forgotten. "But," she added, truthfully, "I"ve often wondered how I looked when I was dressed up."
"Then," he continued, "I told you how the scent bottles grew on the roots of the rose bushes, and, after I went home, you went and pulled up as many as you could. Aunt Francesca was very angry with me."
"Yes, I remember that. I felt as though you were being punished for my sins. It was years afterward that I saw I"d been sufficiently punished myself. Look!"
She leaned toward him and showed him a narrow white line on the soft flesh between her forefinger and her thumb, extending back over her hand.
"A thorn," she said. "I shall carry the scar to my dying day."
With a little catch in his throat, Allison caught the little hand and pressed it to his lips. "Forgive me!" he said.
VI
THE LIGHT ON THE ALTAR
Colonel Kent had gone away on a short business trip and Allison was spending his evenings, which otherwise would have been lonely, at Madame Bernard"s. After talking for a time with Aunt Francesca and Isabel, it seemed natural for him to take up his violin and suggest, if only by a half-humorous glance, that Rose should go to the piano.
Sometimes they played for their own pleasure and sometimes worked for their own benefit. Neither Madame nor Isabel minded hearing the same thing a dozen times or more in the course of an evening, for, as Madame said, with a twinkle in her blue eyes, it made "a pleasant noise," and Isabel did not trouble herself to listen.
Both Rose and Allison were among the fortunate ones who find joy in work. Rose was so keenly interested in her music that she took no count of the hours spent at the piano, and Allison fully appreciated her. It had been a most pleasant surprise for him to find a good accompanist so near home.
The discouraging emptiness of life had mysteriously vanished for Rose.
Her restlessness disappeared as though by magic and her indefinite hunger had been, in some way, appeased. She had unconsciously emerged from one state into another, as the tiny dwellers of the sea cast off their sh.e.l.ls. She had a sense of freedom and a large vision, as of dissonances resolved into harmony.
Clothes, also, which, as Madame had said, are "supposed to please and satisfy women," had taken to themselves a new significance. Rose had made herself take heed of her clothes, but she had never had much real interest. Now she was glad of the time she had spent in planning her gowns, merely with a view to pleasing Aunt Francesca.
To-night, she wore a clinging gown of deep green velvet, with a spray of green leaves in her hair. Her only ornament was a pin of jade, in an Oriental setting. Allison looked at her admiringly.
"There"s something about you," he said, "that I don"t know just how to express. I have no words for it, but, in some way, you seem to live up to your name."
"How so?" Rose asked, demurely.
"Well, I"ve never seen you wear anything that a rose might not wear.
I"ve seen you in red and green and yellow and pink and white, but never in blue or purple, or any of those soft-coloured things that Aunt Francesca wears."
"That only means," answered Rose, flushing, "that blue and grey and tan and lavender aren"t becoming to me."
"That isn"t it," Allison insisted, "for you"d be lovely in anything.
You"re living up to your name."
"Go on," Rose suggested mischievously. "This is getting interesting."
"You needn"t laugh. I a.s.sure you that men know more about those things than they"re usually given credit for. Your jewels fit in with the whole idea, too. That jade pin, for instance, and your tourmaline necklace, and your ruby ring, and the topazes you wear with yellow, and the faint scent of roses that always hangs about you."
"What else?" she smiled.
"Well, I had a note from you the other day. It was fragrant with rose petals and the conventionalised rose, in gold and white, that was stamped in place of a monogram, didn"t escape me. Besides, here"s this."
He took from his pocket a handkerchief of sheerest linen, delicately hemst.i.tched. In one corner was embroidered a rose, in palest shades of pink and green. The delicate, elusive scent filled the room as he shook it out.
"There," he continued, with a laugh. "I found it in my violin case the other day. I don"t know how it came there, but it was much the same as finding a rose twined about the strings."
Aunt Francesca was on the other side of the room, by the fire. Her face, in the firelight, was as delicate as a bit of carved ivory. Her thoughts were far away--one could see that. Isabel sat near her, apparently absorbed in a book, but, in reality, listening to every word.
"I wish," Allison was saying, "that people knew how to live up to themselves. That"s an awkward phrase, but I don"t know of anything better. Even their names don"t fit "em, and they get nicknames."
""Father calls me William,"" murmured Rose.
""And Mother calls me Will,"" Allison went on. "That"s it, exactly. See how the "Margarets" are adjusted to themselves by their friends. Some are "Margie" and more of "em are "Peggy." "Margaret" who is allowed to wear her full name is very rare."